Seventeen master's and doctoral students, recent graduates
and other alumni from Arts and
Sciences, Medicine, Public Health, Peabody and SAIS will have the
opportunity to study abroad during
the 2008-2009 academic year, thanks to three prestigious awards.

Six students who earned their degrees last month, seven
graduate students and two alumni will
study abroad as Fulbright Scholars, one graduate student will
travel to Germany on a DAAD
scholarship, and another has accepted a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral
Dissertation Research Abroad award.

Created in 1946, the Fulbright Program aims to increase
mutual understanding between the
people of the United States and other countries through the
exchange of people, knowledge and skills.
The program awards approximately 1,000 grants annually and
currently operates in more than 140
countries. Successful U.S. applicants utilize their grants to
undertake self-designed programs in a
broad range of disciplines including the social sciences,
business, communication, performing arts,
physical sciences, engineering and education. The awards are
administered by the Institute of
International Education.

DAAD, which stands for Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst (in translation, German
Academic Exchange Service), is a publicly funded independent
organization of higher education
institutions in Germany. The association promotes international
academic relations and cooperation by
offering mobility programs primarily for students and faculty but
also for administrators and others
in the higher education realm. The award is administered by the
German government.

The two programs typically attract many of the same
applicants, so the administrators work
closely together on a number of issues, most notably to avoid
giving grants to the same people.

The DAAD scholar, Caroline Domenghino, will travel to
Germany to research the philosophy of
premonition in German Enlightenment thought and its transaction
into Romanic literature. In
particular, she will study the relationship between premonition
and narrative form and how
premonition affects literary and philosophical form. She
anticipates earning her doctorate in German
from the Krieger School in 2010.

The 15 Fulbright Scholars come from a wide range of
disciplines and have destinations spanning
the globe.

Charles Halka will travel to Lithuania to write an
opera, based on folk music, that will be the
product of ethnomusicological research, study with renowned
composers and collaboration with
members of the next generation of artists. Halka received his
bachelor's degree in piano from
Peabody in 2006 and last month earned master's degrees from
Peabody in composition and music
theory pedagogy.

Franz Knupfer will travel to Nepal to work with the
deaf community in Kathmandu Valley,
observing the challenges people who are deaf or hard of hearing
face in their search for inclusion,
employment and acceptance in mainstream society. He plans to
compile his study into a collection of
short stories and essays. Knupfer earned a master of fine arts
degree in creative writing from the
Krieger School in 2007.

Janet Lee will spend a year as a high school teacher
in South Korea. She earned her bachelor's
degree in public health studies from the Krieger School last
month.

In Venezuela, Michael McCarthy will investigate the
Chavez administration's treatment of the
poor. McCarthy earned a master's degree in political science from
the Krieger School in 2006 and
anticipates earning his doctorate in 2009.

Rene Alexander Orquiza will travel to the Philippines
to explore the transfer of cultures
through food in the United States by examining the impact of
different ethnic cuisines in America
using Filipino cuisine, the cuisine of his family, as one of his
examples. Orquiza anticipates earning his
doctorate in history from the Krieger School in 2011.

Christopher Salguero will be a visiting junior
scholar at the Institute of History and Philology at
the Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, where he will complete
research for his dissertation on the
history of Chinese Buddhist healing; he also will take courses at
a Buddhist center to immerse himself
in local culture as background for the project. Salguero
anticipates earning a doctorate in the history
of medicine from the School of Medicine in 2010.

Aaron Soto-Karlin will travel to Mexico to map the
contemporary landscape of traditional health
practices, practitioners and their clients in Juchitan, Oaxaca.
He plans to focus on the relationship
between healing and knowledge of local medicinal plants and
ecology while working closely with and
observing traditional healers and a Mexican ethnobotanist. He
received his bachelor's degree in
anthropology and Latin American studies from the Krieger School
last month.

In Hong Kong, Stephanie Tow will teach English while
reconnecting with her heritage by
achieving fluency in Cantonese and becoming more familiar with
Cantonese culture. Tow earned her
bachelor's degree in neuroscience from the Krieger School last
month.

Alexander Wald will use two Chinese villages as case
studies in order to identify models of
treatment and prevention for schistosomiasis, a degenerative and
potentially fatal intestinal parasitic
infection suffered by millions of people in endemic zones
throughout China. Wald earned his bachelor's
degree in public health studies from the Krieger School last
month.

Eric Weynand, who received his master's degree in
international affairs from SAIS last month,
will travel to Uruguay to analyze the economic and social impact
of the country's eight free trade
zones from which companies can operate and receive national tax
exemption.

Kathryn Berndtson, MHS candidate in the Bloomberg
School's Department of International
Health, will travel to Cameroon for her project, "Barriers to
Illness Management for HIV+/AIDS-
infected Foster Children in Cameroon."

Miguel Castillo, MPH/MBA candidate in the Bloomberg
School, will participate in the Mexico
Binational Business Grant Program.

Victoria Chou, a doctoral candidate in the Bloomberg
School's Department of International
Health, will travel to Nepal for her project, "Young Maternal Age
and Maternal/Infant Health in Rural
Nepal."

Kiesha McCurtis will travel to Argentina for her
project, "HIV/AIDS and Sex Worker Stigma in
Argentina." She received her master of public health degree from
the Bloomberg School in 2006.

Deepali Patel, MPH candidate in the Bloomberg School,
will travel to Mongolia for her project,
"Mapping the Food Environment: Implication for Food Security."

Lindsey Reynolds, PhD candidate in Health, Behavior
and Society at the Bloomberg School, was
awarded a Fulbright Full Grant but declined the award to accept a
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral
Dissertation Research Abroad award to travel to South Africa for
her project, "Vulnerability,
Eligibility and the 'OVC': The Local Lives of Policies and
Categories."

Students and alumni interested in the U.S. Students Program
of Fulbright or the DAAD should
contact their school's Fulbright adviser: for SAIS, Sarah
Jankowsky; Medicine, Nursing and Public
Health, Cassie Klein; and all others, John Bader. More
information on the Fulbright is available at
www.fulbrightonline.org.